‘Unlike Anything We’ve Seen’: DHS Chief Asks Congress for Help With Border Crisis

‘Unlike Anything We’ve Seen’: DHS Chief Asks Congress for Help With Border Crisis
Kevin McAleenan, Customs and Border Protection Commissioner, speaks to media in El Paso, Texas, on March 27, 2019. (Mani Albrecht/CBP/U.S. Customs and Border Protection)
NTD Photo
  • Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan spoke before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, asking for congressional action on the border crisis. 
  • The DHS chief pointed out his department and the White House have repeatedly asked Congress to pass legislative fixes and provide for supplemental funding for immigration enforcement. 
  • McAleenan testified before a House Committee in May, making the same requests of lawmakers and warning of the deteriorating situation. 

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan appeared before a Senate committee on Tuesday, June 11, and reiterated his requests for Congress to help fix the border crisis.

“It’s been over 18 months since the administration asked for the legislative fixes that would’ve prevented the current crisis, and 40 days since we asked for the emergency funding necessary to manage it,” McAleenan told members of the Senate Judiciary Committee during his opening remarks.

The DHS chief then broke down how the border crisis has only escalated since those requests were made.

“In the last 40 days, 60,000 children have entered into DHS custody—both unaccompanied and as part of family units. Last month, as you noted Mr. Chairman, we encountered a modern record 144,000 border crossers, a record day of over 5,800 border crossings in a single 24-hour period, and the largest single group every apprehended at our border—1,036 individuals,” McAleenan said.

U.S. Mexico border
A group of 1,036 illegal aliens was apprehended in Texas on May 29, 2019, the largest group ever encountered by Border Patrol agents. (Customs and Border Protection)

The acting secretary’s requests Tuesday were nearly identical to what he asked of lawmakers when he testified before a House committee in May: Extend the Flores Settlement Agreement and change the country’s asylum laws.

The Flores Settlement Agreement is a federal court order that restricts the U.S. government from detaining children and family units for longer than 20 days. Because this 20-day period is not long enough for overwhelmed immigration officials to process them, most migrant families are able to be released into the U.S. interior.

McAleenan argued the settlement—along with “holes” in the country’s asylum laws—has become a major pull factor in attracting Central American migrants into the U.S. Unlike years prior when most illegal migrants were single adult males from Mexico, many of the migrants reaching the U.S. border today are family units from Central America’s Northern Triangle region.

“A gentleman in Guatemala two weeks ago that I met talked about his daughter leaving with her child this year, and he said, ‘Everybody knows that a child is a passport for migration to the United States,’” McAleenan told the committee.

Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan
Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington on Dec. 11, 2018. (Donna Burton/CBP)

“I want to make clear that this crisis is unlike anything we’ve seen at our border, and it, in large part, is due to the gaps in our immigration laws that are driving it, causing a dramatic demographic shift in the flow of illegal immigration into the United States that is placing children at unique and critical risks,” he explained.

The DHS secretary pointed out 72% of all border enforcement actions in May were related to unaccompanied children and family units. These children and families, most of them from Central America, cannot be quickly deported back to their home countries, creating a bottleneck of cases for immigration officials.

Piedras_Negras_Mexico_510A1142-600x400
Hundreds of Central Americans, part of a migrant caravan, wait to be processed for visas in an old factory in Piedras Negras, Mexico, on Feb. 15, 2019. (Charlotte Cuthbertson/The Epoch Times)

At the close of his opening remarks, McAleenan gave an explicit endorsement to legislation introduced by Republican South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who also serves as chairman of the Judiciary committee.

Under Graham’s bill, those in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody could be held for as long as 100 days, asylum laws would be changed to reflect the new demographic of people entering the U.S.— allowing unaccompanied children to be more quickly deported, and require asylum seekers to file their claims within their home countries.

By Jason Hopkins

Follow Jason on Twitter

From The Daily Caller News Foundation

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact [email protected].

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